It’s useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned” Matthew 12:36-37. James would say, “This must stop.”Īnother warning from Jesus, “But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. God’s double-edged sword pierces me, bringing self-examination: I use my mouth to recite God’s Word over and over in praise to God, and occasionally, far too often, I use my mouth to degrade another human being, made in God’s likeness. My brothers, this should not be” James 3:9-10. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. Now James’ words ring in my mind, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. But not so fast-what about my words? After a few moments of being shell-shocked, I recall mumbling something about a mean, rude, miserable old man! Guilty me, I had returned evil for evil. It would have been easy for me to conclude-that man was evil and that’s why he treated me so harshly. We speak evil because evil resides in our hearts. Whether we like to admit it or not, our words reflect what’s in our hearts. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him” Matthew 12:34-35. Jesus’ words came to mind, “from the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. We are inundated with ways to keep our physical hearts healthy. I temporarily excused his behavior by assuming that he’d had a bad day and just took it out on me. There is much talk about the importance of a healthy heart. ![]() I sat at the drive-thru waiting, my heart still pounding, and wondered if I was the cause of such vitriol or if there was something deeper. Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth will speak. I could not have been going more than 10 miles per hour. Jesus’ next remarks applied to everyone, even those of us living today. Totally speechless, stunned and flustered, I went on to the bank, rehearsing my actions and my motives-I thought I was acting out of kindness for a neighbor walking his dogs in the cold. Then, for emphasis, he blared his horn and drove off. He screamed at me with profanities that I had run the stop sign. Another neighbor in his car lowered his window and I lowered mine, assuming he wanted to tell me something. So that he would not have to wait for me, I ran the stop sign (yes, I did). This is the only way to being the good man who brings out the good things stored up in them.Yesterday, while driving to the bank, but before I’d left my small, quiet neighborhood, I noticed a man walking two dogs. You have to be very intentional about spending time in the Bible. And this is achieved by committing scripture verses or passages to memory.īut before you store God’s word in your heart, you have to spend time in the same. Therefore, if you store God’s Word in your heart, then your mouth will speak God’s Word ( Psalm 119:11). They think and are so deceived, that their words are disconnected from the contents of their hearts. However, unfortunately, many people don’t realize this. This is because what we are going through (for example, hardship) and what we store (for example, bitterness) in our hearts is what affects our speech. They are a revelation of what our hearts contain. No wonder Jesus declared that “it is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but what comes out of him” (Matthew 15:11).Ĭonsequently, impulsive decisions and foolish words come out of our mouths as a result of pressure and haste respectively. ![]() ![]() Consequently, it is the tongue that sets the body on fire. Therefore, it is out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks. That it is “the healthy tree will bear good fruit” (Matthew 7:17). In Matthew 7:15-20, Jesus taught that “prophets would be identified by their fruits”. His words reveal his heart – the conditions and attitudes that are in his heart. And both men do this through their words. “A good”, reads Luke 6:45, “brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart and an evil man the evil stored up in his heart”. Luke 6:45 Devotional A good man brings good things
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